Outline

Introduction: The majority of thyroid nodules are benign, but they warrant surgical excision when they are symptomatic or if there is concern for malignancy. Ultrasonography and cytologic analysis through fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) are the primary diagnostic methods. FNAB is accepted as a reliable, accurate, and valuable tool for optimizing the extent of thyroid surgery.

AIM: to assess the diagnostic efficiency of cytology results obtained through FNAB in thyroid nodules.

Materials and Methods: A retrospective analyses of data collected from the medical records of patients who underwent thyroid surgery procedures for suspected thyroid solitary or multiple nodules, between January 2008 and December 2010. Patients were categorized into groups based on FNAB results: malignant, benign, inconclusive and nondiagnostic, and these results compared with final surgical histopathologic results.

Results: During 3-year period, totally 181 adult patients underwent thyroid surgery, 144 (79.6%) women and 37 (20.4%) men, among them final histology was benign in 109 (60.2%) and malignant in 72 (39.8%). FNAB preoperatively were performed in 122 patients (67.4%). Of these 122 cytologic results, 49 (40.2%) were benign, 33 (27.1%) were malignant, 24 (19.7%) were inconclusive and 16 (13.1%) were nondiagnostic. According to our results, sensitivity of FNAB for thyroid malignancy was 88.68%, and specificity was 97.40%. Positive predictive value (PPV) for all malignancies was 95.92%, and negative predictive value (NPV) was 92.59%.

Conclusions: FNAB is useful and effective method in the preoperative diagnosis of thyroid nodules, and is recommended as a standard in screening patients presenting with ultrasound and/or scintigraphic suspected thyroid nodule.